Waking Up, Breaking Out
by ThoughtlesslyThinking
Summary: Bella fell into a big black hole of nothingness after Edward left. Once she climbs back out, she is a whole other person, but will it be for the better? -Just a drabble.
1. Chapter 1: Out of the Nothingness

A.N: Hey guys, this is my first _kind of_ decent story after quite a few turbulent years, so please go easy on me. I hope you enjoy reading, after all we do this for fun :)

**Disclaimer for the entire story: No copyright infringement is intended. I do not own Twilight or any of it's characters. It all belongs to Stephenie Meyer.**

Chapter 1: Out of the Nothingness

BPOV

I was all alone, broken, not myself anymore, depressed, apathetic, a shell. Because my one and only true love left me. He was my other half, my soul mate.

_He _ left me months ago. Sam found me in the forest after _it_ happened. I hadn't even realized I was there. I hadn't realized I was anywhere in the first place. I was just _gone_.

Life or better, _existence_, along with everything in it, had become a dull blur around me. It was like looking through thick glass. Moving shapes and muted sounds, it all wasn't quite reaching me. I couldn't grasp what went on around me. Not that I wanted to. Everything was a background to my unwanted thoughts, easily ignored and unimportant. But my thoughts were not so easily ignored. They were beating in on me, the impact reverberating inside my skull, making my head ache. I couldn't turn them off, but I could turn everything else off. And so I did. No emotions, no nothing.

I had been lying in my bed, staring into nothingness when I registered voices around me: it was my dad talking about what would be best for me. Funny, you can't help someone who isn't there. You can't help someone who doesn't _exist _anymore_._

Lately things started hitting the thick cocoon of blurry glass I put around me. It would thump and pull my attention. Sometimes it was just a fraction of an instant, other times it was a bit more prominent. The blur wasn't a constant anymore, those little infractions in my glass brought diversion.

Some time ago I heard that song, which is a mystery because I started detesting any and all music. It generally wasn't turned on around our house. But maybe we weren't at our house, I couldn't remember. Time held no meaning anymore. Back to the song… It snapped me out of the haze I was in. All the cracks that had been forming in my thick glass cocoon had finally made a hole. I felt like the song described, I could relate. Stupid and so incredibly cliché, I know. But it was the song that made me realize I had to do something about myself. When I heard it I was internally laughing at the pathetic singer who had lost her love. I was boring Bella Swan, suffering because her boyfriend didn't want her, I was exactly the same. How absolutely pathetic is that?!

I decided that if my life was ruined I could better make the best of what was left. Again I realized how pathetic I had become, I didn't have much besides my boyfriend. I got so wrapped up in the all-consuming love we _were_ that I had little to no friends left. I lost contact with my few friends from Phoenix and even with the ones I had in Forks. The latter were only five to ten minutes away from me… and that was probably the time you needed to get there on foot. I really had no excuse there. That entire matter aside, I started conjuring up a plan. Immediately, I bumped into a first problem: to execute my plan, money was required, and lots of it. I did have some money of my own, earned from weekend jobs in Phoenix and my job at the Newtons in Forks. My savings were certainly a good start, but to really do what I intended to do, I would need more.

Charlie's money wasn't an option; he had worked hard his whole life to get where he was now, with the little money he had. I couldn't possibly waste it to my own benefit. I needed to get my money elsewhere. That only left one option, Phil and Renée. Phil had finally made progress in his baseball career and started belonging to the important people in the whole of baseball. I wouldn't know what he did, because obviously I had been a 'bit' absent lately. During all of the very one-sided phone calls Renée and I had, she had excitedly and eloquently explained everything. At the time, it had all been a buzz in the background and none of what she told me really registered. I did know that he had earned quite some money already and that it would continue to be like that. They still travelled a lot but they also bought a house in LA. The reason behind it- because let's be honest and face it- my mom was quite a few years older than Phil and probably wanted to settle. Yes, even characters like my bubbly and energetic mom needed a bit of a constant in life as they got older.

Last time I was on the phone with Renée, she had been raving about LA, about the sun and the shops and all exciting things she was going to do while they were there and not on the road. She had been talking about how a change of scenery would benefit me. She said it was only normal that I was in a bit of a depression, as I was currently living in the darkest and rainiest hole in the whole world. Surely depression was to follow, she blabbed on, it was what she'd always thought would happen to me if I stayed too long. According to her I was like a beautiful flower, and they needed the sun to survive and to show their beauty in the best of ways.

My mom had always been up in the clouds, but this was a bit much even for her doing. She sounded a lot more self-righteous and even a tad bit stuck-up. I would have addressed it to her, hadn't I been wallowing so deep in my pool of self-pity.

But, now that I was thinking about it, this whole situation came in very handy. Since my mom had already been pushing me into living with her and Phil, nobody would really think about why I suddenly did want to move away. The excuse would made all too easily, the 'change of scenery' explanation oh-so believable. Depressed Bella Swan, the poor thing. Sucked in by those weird Cullens and spit out again like trash. Some people felt sorry for me, some people were probably laughing behind my back - and that did hurt somewhere in the depths of my mind, but I shielded myself off of that - The new me would not care about what other people thought. Only the more reason to move away, I didn't like the narrow-mindedness of the Forks inhabitants. I could do without their judging and prying eyes.

Another benefit of moving away to LA was the fact that my mom and Phil still travelled a lot. It would give me an unknown amount freedom, a thing most teenagers could only dream about. And I intended to fully use all of that freedom to the best of my ability.

And so my mind was made up, I would move to LA and be someone else. No Boring Bella anymore, the plain Jane-me had to disappear. Isabella Marie Swan was stronger than some life-sucking vampire who threw humans away when he got bored with them. I was better than that and I was so over him (I still had to work on the 'so over him'-part). With that thought I finally fell asleep.


	2. Chapter 2: Putting It All In Motion

BPOV

I woke up early and saw a watery sun shining through the curtains. It may have been a sad excuse for sun, but there were definitely some brave rays of sunlight peeking through an abnormally small amount of clouds. And considering actual sun was pretty rare in Forks, I decided to take it as a sign that my plan was going to work out.

I stayed still in my bed for a moment, pondering and thinking over my course of action. It had been so long since there was room for tangible thoughts in the misty mess that made up my brain. I was glad to feel the fog clear up. First item on the agenda: Charlie. I had to tell him I would be leaving this week or next week, as soon as possible anyway. During my sleep, somewhere in my subconscious I ended up deciding I would use the 'change of scenery'-excuse. I still had to decide whether I would play the 'broken girl in desperate need of change and a better environment to heal', or the 'girl that was over it and ready to move on with her life in another place'. Given the way I had been for the past weeks/ months, (how long had I been so absent anyway?) I decided the first option was the more plausible one; a drastic change in behavior might come across as odd. On the other hand, option two would make them more trusting in my mental state. This clearly needed more thought going in to it.

Second agenda item: Renée. I had to call her with the 'good' news and probably ask for money- something old Bella would hate, but Isabella would have little trouble with- money Renée would send me without a doubt. After all I needed funds for my flight and also for new clothes, I couldn't possibly go there in wool sweaters and ribbed flannel pants. (Actually, how horrific were those articles of clothing?!)

The third and last, biggest and most vague agenda item: execute part two of The Plan. I still wasn't quite sure how to handle it, as I had no experience in that area what so ever, but I could work up to it and see how it would go.

I decided to get up and take a shower, starting the day and slowly taking a step in the right direction of my long (?) forgotten morning routine. As I pulled open the doors to my wardrobe I wondered how long it had been since I had made a conscious decision on what to wear. Lately I wore old sweats and over-sized holey tees. I couldn't even remember whether I wore bras or not. That was dreadful, even for Boring Bella. She'd never been a fashionable person, but she did care about decent clothes. After staring into my wardrobe, seeing nothing, I decided a more pulled together persona would work best on Charlie so I opted for a simple, but relatively nice outfit. I grabbed at a random pair of pants, my fingers touching loose fitting jeans first; I chose a dark brown, long sleeved t-shirt and a thick cream cardigan with it. The outfit was bland, but it would come across less disturbed than the attire that had become the norm.

Clothes and toiletry in hand, I headed for the shower. I turned the faucet and let the water heat for a moment. I undressed, avoiding looking in the mirror still, and stepped in the shower. I grabbed at the shampoo bottle and was glad to notice it was still a neutral scent. Since Bella disappeared from the world of the living, Charlie was in charge of groceries and shopping, a task that wasn't one of his talents. Eventually he called in the help of Sue Clearwater, who had lost her husband a while ago due to a heart attack. It was weird knowing he had still been there when they looked for me in the forest. Anyway, since Sue took care of buying supplies, I had a different shampoo. She refrained from buying anything strawberry-scented, since The Big Break Down. The first time they got relatively through to me and had a bit of response, they decided it was shower time. The whole 'getting Pathetic Apathetic Bella into the shower- ordeal', had been a catastrophe; I had opened the shampoo and lost it. As the scent wafted out of the bottle, it reminded me of how much _he _loved it when my hair smelled of strawberries. After a while they had called Sue over, since I was sitting in the shower naked, screaming and trashing. Not a sight a father wants to see. I remembered vaguely that she tried for quite a long time to get me to wash up and when that didn't work she coed me out of the shower and into some clothes. Afterwards they were right back where they started with me. In bed, apathetic again and refusing to come out. Anyway, that was how I came to have neutral-scented shampoo.

Once I was freshly washed and shaven, I turned the water off. Shaving had been quite the task, as I had neglected all but the absolute most basic hygiene. My legs looked as if I had some serious fur, so I was glad to find a pack of pink razors Sue must have bought for me a while ago. I was very much ashamed of how many of them I had to use to get the job done. They clogged up in no time, honestly, it was scandalous. I quickly toweled myself off and dressed. With the more pulled together persona, came the task of combing my hair. Another task I had avoided during my stay in the nothingness. Somehow my hair didn't look as awful as one would expect after such a long time of neglect, and I was oh so thankful for it. Getting al the snarls out of it was another story all together. I must have been at it for almost half an hour before deciding enough was enough and waving the blow dryer through it, getting it partly dry. Dealing with ponytail bumps and semi-dry hair wasn't high on my list right now, so a low braid it was. Deciding I looked sane enough, I made my way downstairs.


End file.
